


Baton

by aus_der_traum



Category: World War II - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 13:09:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11783814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aus_der_traum/pseuds/aus_der_traum
Summary: With such enthusiastic protectors it’s not a good idea to insult the little doctor.





	Baton

A pair of SA men drag the artist out, arms hooked beneath his armpits and throw him down in front of Goebbels. His dead-weight slams down hard through his knees with a percussive thud that rumbles through the floorboards, followed by the weak slap of his palms. His face is a puffy disorganization of bruises that almost puts him beyond recognition, let alone any hope he could get his feet back under him.

Felix Oberg, a young member from Bremen, out of whom Goebbels had once managed to extract a sweetly tongue-tied account of his city’s deliverance by Gerstenberg and Caspari’s Freikorps, crouches down beside Goebbels’ chair and apologises for the boys already having gotten a little carried away. He does sound sorry, but there are also two deep dimples in his round, pleasant face and he’s shining with the same kind of bashful pride as the other men. The group jostle with each other, prowling in a muttering circle enclosing the beaten man. They are so pleased with themselves, bless them, their rough hewn self control isn’t quite up to the task of preventing the occasional scuffle as one man or another tries to push closer to the front of the crowd or find a spot nearer to Goebbels but they are on their best behaviour; anything too boisterous and an elbow in the ribs, a snarl and a significant look in his direction, brings things down from a boil.

The man trying his best to become part of the floor in front of him is Jacob Schmoller – the sheath of cheap paper in Goebbels’ hand has a different set of blocky initials at the bottom of each print, but it’s Schmoller’s work all the same. He’s been experimenting with his caricature of Goebbels; rat-like, simian, some grotesque homunculus that should have been smothered in the crib. Felix seems genuinely distressed to see him looking at the illustrations and tries to clumsily sneak them away more than once, a fretful pit between his eyebrows and his mouth twisting with the usual struggle to set his feelings into words. He’s only a little mollified when Goebbels smiles at him and pets his head, finally exclaiming that it’s all just such damn rubbish and grinding his scuffed boot unhappily against the floor.

He’s happier to unclip his baton and slide it coyly into Goebbels lap, a wicked, playground grin dispersing with his sullen look as he glances meaningfully from the illustrator to Goebbels to the weapon that he’s clearly offering up for use. Goebbels weakly curls his fingers around the baton. He makes no attempt to lift it. Felix covers Goebbels hand with his own thick fingers then slides his grip down the dark, deep-polished wooden length of the club, his knuckles rubbing along the inside of Goebbels thigh as his grip slips up and down and up again. Goebbels takes his hand away leaving brief fingertip blooms of sweat on the handle, quick to disappear but not so quick as the squabble to light his cigarette for him as he plucks one from his case.  
Felix takes up the baton, rolling his wrist with a nasty elegance as he approaches Schmoller. The circle tightens around them like a fist, bodies pressing closer on all sides. There’s a brush of coarse cloth against the nape of his neck, men leaning on the back of his chair and crouching at his left and right just like Felix had done, gripping the armrests, an upholstery of bruised and scraped knuckles. There’s something like the stamp of woodsmoke in the fibre of their uniforms and that particular smell that rises with the muggy heat of many male bodies – men unlike him; as much as he is welcomed, nuzzled, adored by his pack he knows he always will be set apart – the hot thrum of unspilled violence.

He thinks Felix must have arranged this all, to get the honour of the first blow. The sound Schmoller’s elbow makes when Felix cracks the baton across it is like a log popping in a fire. Or better liken it to a starter pistol since after that the others set on him at once, assisting with their boots and fists to smash and trample Schmoller to a mess of broken limbs that could only dream of being as perfectly formed as their little doctor. Someone rests their brow against his knee, sinking down and squeezing his calf with a giddy, drunken sigh, though maybe the sigh comes from above where an affectionate finger is tufting a cowlick as it spirals on his scalp. A hand greedily palms at his groin and Goebbels tries to find its owner amidst the chimeric mass of brown sleeves surrounding him but another hand kindly takes his chin and turns his face back to the sight of the artist being smeared into a twitching insect.

When Goebbels stands he can feel the men like a wave at his back, all eyes on him, and those before him scramble eagerly away from the ruin of Schmoller. Goebbels crumples his collection of cartoons into a tight ball of newspaper. Only Felix is still standing beside the artist, holding him up by his hair. He shouts something in Schmoller’s ear as Goebbels steps forward that makes the other man whimper and try to pull away but Goebbels is intent on the soft, red mess of Schmoller’s face and then the tight, almost nauseating clench of his own stomach as he shoves the paper ball inside Schmoller’s mouth and feels a tooth give way to a roar of approval. The feeling in his stomach drops down into his loins, that heavy plaited chain of pleasure and sickness he associates with hunger of all kinds.

On a whim he reaches up and wipes his bloody fingertips over Felix’s brow who grins and lets the artist slump back to the ground, taking Goebbels up into his arms instead. They do this sometimes, his men, hoisting him upon their shoulders in triumph. The ceilings are too low in here for that perhaps and he laughs as Felix scoops him off his feet like a groom would cradle his bride, carrying him effortlessly toward the rooms upstairs. Goebbels doesn’t need to look over his shoulder to know a small detachment is following along after them, or to check what lies behind the sound of a bottle breaking and the wet choking noise that comes soon after.


End file.
